There was a low-key meeting taking place in a federal office in Liberal, Kansas. The subject was an alien minor who called herself Ashes and had been chased into their jurisdiction by two uniformed men who had seemed intent on killing her.
Asylum the assembled agents agreed was going to be easy to grant. A juvenile fugitive in danger of life. Open and shut. The vexing question was what to do with her. She obviously had information that could possibly be vital to the national interest, but again she was a child. So it was agreed to arrange fosterage with dependable people and to coincidentally attempt to find out all they could from the girl.
In the meantime continuing her language lessons was deemed a priority.
* * *
In the US Embassy in Oslo CIA agent James Merridew spewed his coffee through is nose when he was reviewing the latest information dump their Norwegian internal affairs contact had supplied. When he recovered he ran it again, yes it was she, the mystery girl from the Russian’s press briefing after the inter-dimensional invasion. He listened in mounting horror; his rusty Russian was enough to suggest the Girl, Nadia, knew how to form those rift things.
The file found its way to the top levels of the agency in record time and pressure was brought to bear on Norway and the Russian Federation seeking access to the girl and her secrets.
The Norwegians for their part were also interested in the affair after commissioner Gerhardsen had made them aware of the facts, but it was the efforts of the Americans that spurred them into action.
They demanded a meeting with the representatives of the Russian Federation and with Nadia Alextranovna Moldagulova.
The file supplied by the busy Norwegian entrepreneur had also reached the Russian Embassy and alerted all concerned that things were about to get interesting.
The ambassador reluctantly agreed to the meeting with representatives of the Norwegian government and advised captain Valentina Kosmodemyanskaya. She in turn told her team and told Nadia.
Shal in her helpful Nadia persona in turn offered to open a gate to Russia.
Valentina was tempted but decided to leave that possibility for a later date.
The following day was marked the arrival of several luxury cars. The CIA had dredged up a Russian speaking agent they thought would seem sympathetic to a young girl and had managed to persuade the Norwegians to include her in their delegation. For their part the Norwegians consisted of two parliamentarians representing the two largest parties in government, a civil servant a security agent and a government psychologist and a translator.
For their part the Russians were represented by their ambassador, his charge d’affairs, Captain Kosmodemyanskaya and lieutenant Novosiltsev.
Several hours later all was unchanged, Nadia had assured everyone that she was eager to return to Russia with her friends Valentina and Vasili, in impeccable Russian, Norwegian and English.
* * *
Now that the deeds were signed Antonio grew his reef into a long thin island and tinkered with his surfing beach until he felt he couldn’t improve on it.
He then began creating a teardrop shaped island sheltered from the Atlantic by his main island.
Felicia meanwhile commissioned plans for the hotel they planned on creating from the architect Father Bartolomeu had suggested. He was somewhat overwhelmed at the scale of the project but accepted.
Lilly obtained land in Feira dos Namorados for a Guild Hall and on hitting a bureaucratic nightmare was glad to pass the paperwork onto Felicia’s lawyer, who unknown to him became the official lawyer of the Adventurers Guild.
* * *
“I’m telling you this will be easy, it’s new, very new and Midgard hasn’t any magic for ages. That dungeon core is as good as ours.”
“But it’s a water dungeon, we’ll need potions of water breathing and movement,” the speaker, a squat powerfully built dwarf emptied his mug and waved at the bartender for a refill. “As I was saying potions are expensive, and there is also the fee for the portal guild.”
“An investment that will seem insignificant once we have the core,” insisted nervous looking balding human.
“I’m in if you’ll lend me my share in the up front fee ‘cause I’m skint,” a decidedly scruffy youngster added hopefully.
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“Yeah! Yeah we already agreed but you’d better be as good at spotting traps as you claim Randy – or is it still Ratty!” interjected the balding human with a smirk.
“So have any of tackled an underwater dungeon before?” queried a gnome wrapped in voluminous brown robes.
“Not me,” replied the fifth person at the table, a solidly muscular woman with close cropped black hair.
The dwarf’s beer arrived and a copper departed in the hands of a disinterested waitress. The tavern was full despite the fact that it smelled sour, the tables were greasy and the floor scattered with refuse but it was cheap and the ale even if not the best was drinkable.
The hopeful treasure hunters finally decided to obtain two potions of water breathing each book their gate to wherever the Adventurers Guild was setting up – making sure to arrive at night – then use their remaining funds on potions of water movement. This turned out to mean they were able to obtain three.
The moon was half full when the five hopeful adventurers arrived next to a hole in the ground amongst piles of bricks and assorted mysterious – at least for them – metallic objects. The gnome held up a needle on a string. Less than a league to the west. Let’s go!”
The five acquaintances – certainly not friends – made their way out of Feira dos Namorados, marveling at the street lighting and surprised at the fact that all the roads were paved.
The rough dirt track leading to the beach was more in line with their expectations of a magic deprived world. It took them just over an hour to reach the beach where they stopped just outside Antonio’s domain. The gnome used his dungeon locator again. “Its somewhere in line with the southern end of that island.”
They checked their gear and all took one of the water breathing potions, Roolan the gnome as their mage was deemed not to need a water movement potion, he agreed somewhat reluctantly despite agreeing with the logic. Randy was the other member of the group to be bereft of ease of movement underwater; as he didn’t pay his protests were in vain.
Antonio took note of the nocturnal visitors as soon as they entered his domain; he sent a quick pulse to his pixie waking her. He brought her up to date and asked for her advice, concluding with: « don’t like that they’re sneaking in at night, I say we kill them all! »
« That might upset Lilly, but I agree they’re definitely here to challenge you. »
« They are using magic to breath underwater and three seem to able to move unhindered so they’re not locals. Lily didn’t let us know about anything so I think we have a real test of our defenses. Too real. I’m going to do my best to kill them unless you have a good reason not to. »
Antonio started to collect a school of his hairtails, the silvery blue needle toothed giants – the smallest being two meters long – congregated and headed towards the adventurers, the school split so that half could strike from either side.
« I just don’t want you to gain the reputation of a killer dungeon. But yes, let’s try our defenses. »
Randy was the first to spot the threat, he was hanging onto the dwarf so he thumped him lightly and pointed to their left.
“Mobs incoming!” shouted Votun as he readied his spear.
Unfortunately for the adventurers, the school of hairtails approaching from the north were somewhat in advance of their brethren approaching from the south. The three fighters formed a shield for their healer as they faced north, Randy being a newbie when it came to dungeons allowed a generous distance from the busy fighters. So when the southern school arrived he was a sitting duck. His screams as the frenzied fish tore into him and surrounded him in a fog of blood were brief. They did however alert his former companions to their danger.
Antonio was annoyed, the damn fish were too bloodthirsty, when blood filled the water they attacked everything even each other, and they kept attacking the dead! However the one they had killed had an unused potion he absorbed for later study.
‘Lets see how they handle the squid patrol,’ Antonio urged his three giant squids round from their normal station well out to sea to intercept the adventurers, with their Jet propulsion they would arrive in good time. He contacted the matriarch also the biggest of the trio, « Well Jezebel, please kill at least one of those pests and make me proud. »
Antonio then took a massive hit on his manna and could only thank his stars that the hairtails had killed one of the adventures or he might have blacked out.
ting: Giant squid Jezebel has evolved and become a boss Monster
« Thank you master. Jezebel will always do her best for master. »
Antonio was surprised, Jezebel had an incredible sultry and sexy voice, ‘maybe that’s due to the name,’ he mused.
The remaining adventurers pulled themselves together, healed their wounds and decided to continue despite some concern over the level of challenge.
Lily came awake in the room Antonio had made for them before withdrawing his domain once more. Something important had just happened.
The remaining adventurers were about two thirds of the way to the island when Jezebel and her cohorts hove into view. They dropped to the sea floor and took up defensive positions around Roolan.
Jezebel’s flanks flickered with light, and her cohorts flashed an acknowledgement. Then one of the nameless ones jetted at full speed passing over the adventurers and dumping a huge ink cloud as he passed.
Roolan was close to panic, how could he cast magic when he couldn’t see! Then a huge tentacle wrapped round Frika and hauled her out of sight, then it was Baldie’s turn. When the third of those mobs attacked and he was yanked out of the cloud he saw the giant diving back into the slowly dissipating ink cloud. He could see about half of Frika sinking to the bottom of the sea. He was just in time to see baldy loose his head, Baldie at least seemed to have severed one of the things tentacles and buried his spear near one of its eyes. Roolan unleashed his magic in an extravagant display and managed to kill his assailant.
The other whatever it was carefully removed the spear from near its eye and charged him, It moved with incredible swiftness. Roolan was attempting to drink a manna regeneration potion when the mob rammed him. Stunned and hurt Roolan didn’t last long. He didn’t see Jezebel eat the final member of their group.
« That was lovely Jezebel, well done to you and yours. »
« Thank you Master, they were tasty! »
Lilly gazed out to sea. That was four deaths occurring near simultaneously. And they didn’t feel like beginners. She suspected what had wakened her was yet another. She hadn’t seen anything capable of that in her delve. It was worrying; she would need to talk to Felicia.